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MP 7,1 Poll - So what should the base MP 2019 be sold for then??
- Thread starter mtasquared
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$4999 is missing and would be a little better. But the $6000 isn’t bad for what it is.
I think that's a fair price. That should be about the refurbished price when those become available next year, or maybe sooner if a retailer offers $1000 off like Micro Center did with the iMac Pro just a month after release.
$3999 would work, I think, but with graphics and storage specs to match the base iMac Pro. I do think that there’s a slim chance enough backlash might cause them to rethink their pricing.
I also think that they may be a bit confused in their PC comparison that seems to be what they’re basing price off of— they don’t seem to realize that they’re (apparently) configuring with a much more expensive Xeon Gold 8-core when working up their “equivalent Z8 workstation.”
It just shouldn’t be this difficult to get an expandable Macintosh with a case you can open...yano, like a $500-1000 PC would be?
Fred
I also think that they may be a bit confused in their PC comparison that seems to be what they’re basing price off of— they don’t seem to realize that they’re (apparently) configuring with a much more expensive Xeon Gold 8-core when working up their “equivalent Z8 workstation.”
It just shouldn’t be this difficult to get an expandable Macintosh with a case you can open...yano, like a $500-1000 PC would be?
Fred
It varies. It was 6 months for the iMac Pro. 3 months for the 2018 Mac mini.
$3,500, it doesn't come with a display, Facetime camera, only has 256 GBs of SSD storage, mediocre graphics and it took them 6 years to get this right and to appease those who bought the trash can.
In fact, the base model should not be any more than $1,600. But, for the engineering cost, I would push it up to $1,999.
In fact, the base model should not be any more than $1,600. But, for the engineering cost, I would push it up to $1,999.
While we know the price of the base CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD, the rest is custom build so it is impossible to estimate that cost of that. I think the motherboard is quite expensive as it is certainly custom build, the same with that big PSU. The base price mainly covers the Mac Pro 2019 platform, not the base CPU + GPU.
I have voted $4500, as that would be nice, but we are basically all armchair Product Managers on this, and I bet there is a lot to take into account that we just don’t know about.
I have voted $4500, as that would be nice, but we are basically all armchair Product Managers on this, and I bet there is a lot to take into account that we just don’t know about.
There is so much that is impressive with this new Mac. Double-sided motherboard. A new PCIe power slot developed with AMD. Passive cooling for the CPU & GPUs for nearly silent operation. The design of the case with comfortable handles and optional wheels. Apple, AMD, and others put a ton of work into making this machine happen. I agree that asking us what the price should be is really an uneducated opinion, and the more I think about it the more $6k makes sense.
Over here in the UK, the iMac Pro starts at £4899, so nearly 1:1 conversion from the US price. The MP is likely to be the same. It should start at the same price as the base iMP, or a lot nearer to it, and have the same SSD capacity and an equivalent GPU. In other words, pay the same price or a little more, and trade the expansion for the 5K display. Over time, I think that current gaping gap should narrow, not widen.....
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Given that you can upgrade this computer at your will and make it last 10 years, like the previous cMP, I don’t think it’s that expensive. They could have made the base storage 1TiB, though.
As for the pricing of the components, as others have said, I don’t know how to price R&D and how much the custom made parts can cost. Seems to be in line with comparable workstations. Would I have liked it to be cheaper? Of course.
I won’t buy first gen, though. I want to see how committed is apple to the mac pro in terms of keeping it updated.
As for the pricing of the components, as others have said, I don’t know how to price R&D and how much the custom made parts can cost. Seems to be in line with comparable workstations. Would I have liked it to be cheaper? Of course.
I won’t buy first gen, though. I want to see how committed is apple to the mac pro in terms of keeping it updated.
who is going to even buy and use just the base mac pro? (not upgrading anything)
if you need mac pro, then you are actually going to do something with it and the base mac pro isnt the computer you are looking for. right? apple simply keeps the base price tag high because people who buy it are going to upgrade it and they buy parts from somewhere else than from apple and apple doesnt see a single dime from that money you spent buying parts from others. so, they make sure they get a good profits for every mac pros sold.
if you need mac pro, then you are actually going to do something with it and the base mac pro isnt the computer you are looking for. right? apple simply keeps the base price tag high because people who buy it are going to upgrade it and they buy parts from somewhere else than from apple and apple doesnt see a single dime from that money you spent buying parts from others. so, they make sure they get a good profits for every mac pros sold.
The Mac Pro has a lot of premium features the iMac doesn’t. The case and board are both custom and high end. The passively cooled GPU. The power supply is much higher end. The PCIe scheme is much more complicated. It’s much more complicated than screen vs no screen.
I think instead of changing the price, Apple should really bump the base SSD to 1 TB. That’s two 512 gigabyte blades that wouldn’t cost them much, and make people happier.
Vote for 3500$
Why?
Price on the Street with Tax in Euro:
Xeon W-3223 826,49 €
ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 580 TOP (High price XTR VERSION) 271,00 €
Mainboard 800 € (you get a dual socket board for this price)
Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB 99 € (sorry no Pro Version with so small size)
Crucial RDIMM 8GB, DDR4-2666, CL19, reg ECC 4 x 56,80 € (227,20 €)
Case 400 € (old Mac Pro 2012 spare part price)
SilverStone Strider Gold S-Series 1500W ATX 2.3 297,73 €
Cooler and small parts 60 €
MacOS 129 € (was the price for the amazing Snow Leopard)
So you get 3110,42 €, without Tax 2613.80 €, these are 2.964,45 $
2.964,45 $ for Consumer, but Apple gets better prices. Plus the "I'm Apple Bonus" = 3500 $.
Why?
Price on the Street with Tax in Euro:
Xeon W-3223 826,49 €
ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 580 TOP (High price XTR VERSION) 271,00 €
Mainboard 800 € (you get a dual socket board for this price)
Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB 99 € (sorry no Pro Version with so small size)
Crucial RDIMM 8GB, DDR4-2666, CL19, reg ECC 4 x 56,80 € (227,20 €)
Case 400 € (old Mac Pro 2012 spare part price)
SilverStone Strider Gold S-Series 1500W ATX 2.3 297,73 €
Cooler and small parts 60 €
MacOS 129 € (was the price for the amazing Snow Leopard)
So you get 3110,42 €, without Tax 2613.80 €, these are 2.964,45 $
2.964,45 $ for Consumer, but Apple gets better prices. Plus the "I'm Apple Bonus" = 3500 $.
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Custom built is always cheaper than buying a complete box. Go spec the same thing with HP and Dell and you’ll see the same price jump. Apple isn’t a charity. And no PC vendor competes with custom built prices. I don’t know why suddenly everyone is pulling out custom built comparisons like any vendor is price competitive with that. Complete systems always cost a lot more.
All the previous Mac Pros have had an entry-level price that started where the iMac left off (so about $2500 in 2006, $3400 today*) - they've always come in a lovely, custom case and offered a few flourishes that you wouldn't see in a generic Xeon workstation and they've always been BTO upgradeable to pro media monsters with 5-figure prices. Yea, even the hated trashcan met that description if you believed that external expansion and compulsory dual GPUs were the future.
At some stage in the last two years, Apple decided that it was OK to massively hike that up to $6000 - and the new Mac Pro has been designed with that in mind (seriously, if Apple don't have at least a rough target price-point in mind when they start a design then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might like to buy - to do otherwise isn't even praiseworthy, it would be incompetent and a recipe for producing an Edsel/Homer).
So that's the answer to the thread's question - a Mac Pro should have started at around $3500, same as it always did (+ inflation). Whether or not the newly announced Mac Pro could be economically sold at that price, or easily trimmed down to meet it, is Apple's problem. Likewise, even if that infamous display stand actually costs $1000 to make and Apple are losing a dollar on every one they sell it is still a stupid price for a display stand.
The alternative answer is that a headless Mac Pro with an 8-core Xeon W, 32GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Radeon Pro 580X and some PCI slots shouldn't cost more than an iMac Pro with a comparable processor (basically the 2017 version of the same point in the range), the same RAM, a better GPU, 4x as much storage and a display the equivalent of which would cost you $1300, but without the PCIe slots. Yes, folks, cramming that all into an iMac chassis and keeping it cool took some R&D too - and this armchair product manager reckons that would be a tad harder than designing a full-size PCIe motherboard for a huge tower enclosure with tons of space.
* Currently $3399 for an 8-core i9, 32GB of RAM at Apple's ridiculous BTO price, the same Radeon Pro 580X as in the new Pro and 512GB of SSD - twice what you get in the Mac Pro. OK, the pro is Xeon/ECC - but that's always been the case and past Mac Pros have still started at $2500-$3000, just as its often been the case that the top-end iMac has comparable benchmarks to the entry Mac Pro - everybody but the true haters understand why that is.
General rule is three to six months after it goes on sale. Also, refurbished have a default 15% discount, which does not vary. An additional 5% off of the refurbished price once a successor model is released. It does not go down further after that, hence why Apple is still selling a 128GB WI-Fi/LTE iPad mini 2 for $379 5-1/2 years after it went on sale. while the mini 4 equivalent is only $40 more, almost 4 years after being introduced.
Not really, at WWDC Apple is shown us a HP Z8 G4 for a higher Price but they don't say: This is a dual socket machine with a Xeon Gold CPU (Xeon Gold is over 2000€ cheaper!) Buy a second CPU and you can build a 48 Core System.
A more realitic comparsion is the HP Z4 G4 with:
Xeon W-2145 3.7 GHz 2666MHz 8C CPU
32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 2666 DIMM ECC Registered Memory
HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB TLC SSD
3/3/3 (material/labor/onsite) Warranty
for 3438€!
But you must buy a 200€ GPU for your own, because HP has no mainstream GPUs.
(Apple compares system with a 740 € Radeon Pro WX 7100 8GB and a system with a 200 € 580X at WWDC)
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No, you don't. HM Z4 with 3.7 Xeon W (last gen, but the 3223 is only just out and is much the same price) is around $3500: https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=4RX30EA&opt=ABU&sel=WKS (remember to knock off 20% UK VAT before converting to dollars). If it costs you $2500 to add 10Gb Ethernet and a SSD to that, you're holding it wrong - and if you have a use case for 8 PCIe slots compared to the 4 or so in the HP, do tell.
I've build my own PCs in the past and - even if you don't cost in your own time - you don't save money on like-for-like unless you can get components at trade prices or hunt down surplus/bargain deals. You do it to get exactly what you want (which may be better value c.f. a pre-built with parts that you don't want/need).
I'm trying to spec one out, and I literally can't get it below $4400, and that's still with:
- Less PCIe slots than a Mac Pro
- A 1000 watt power supply and not a 1500 watt power supply
- A lower end GPU than even the 580 in the Mac Pro
- No Thunderbolt
- A pretty trashy case
- And a louder design
Edit: I found the FirePro 7100 option, so now it's at $4800, with the HP now having the advantage of ECC GPU memory. Everything else above still applies.
Windows 10 Pro 64 for Workstations - HP recommends Windows 10 Pro. / Z4 G4 Workstation / Intel® Xeon® W-2145 Processor (3.7 GHz, up to 4.5 GHz w/Turbo Boost, 8.25 MB cache, 8 core) / Z4 G4 1000 W Chassis / 32 GB (4x8 GB) DDR4-2666 ECC Memory / Operating System Load to SATA / 280 GB Intel® Optane™ PCIe SSD / AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 (8 GB GDDR5, 4x DisplayPort) Graphics / Premium - 2 x USB 3.1 Type C; 2 x USB 3.0 Type A / HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) for Z / 9.5mm DVD Writer Optical Disc Drive / USB Premium Wired Keyboard / USB Wired Mouse / No Adapters Needed / HP Z4 Standard CPU Cooling Solution / HP Z4 G4 Fan Front Card Guide / 3/3/3-year warranty / Single Unit Packaging / Z4 G4 1000 W Country Kit
(It also won't let you boot from anything but an internal SATA drive which means this config is actually impossible to order.)
The Optane isn't an exact match, but it's the closest thing I can find to the RAID'ed SSDs on the Mac Pro managed by T2,